Heating Help

Burnham V7

Is there not a heat  exchanger cracking issue ?

Yes but

It's not universal. That block had flaws but some did survive a good while.

I replaced my v75 after 16 years because it was much to big and i was switching to gas. The sections looked pretty good when they dismantled it but I had always been pretty careful with that boilers care and feeding.

Bob

v74

I've had my V74 for a while now with no issues. It is a bit oversized so I have it down fired and the aquastat is set to 110° - 160°. Thermal change kills these, so anything to limit that helps.

Cold Shock

In my opinion, a 110 degree operating temperature and a 160 degree high limit is a cold start boiler with almost maximum shock. With maximum creation of Kibble And Bits inside. Uhm. Fun to clean.

funny

thermal shock never was an issue with V-1, or even when they were American Standards

I was told

from someone from Burnham the problem with the V7 was the internal part of the sections near the cleanouts were too square , the edges were too jagged , and water moving past them made turbulence and caused them to leak .

A few days ago we were at a Levitt house to turn V74 180 degrees for easier access vunder the stairs . Saw it was leaking near the cleanouts . We told the customer and she decided to have us do the job anyway . Water was spritzing out at 20 psi so we knocked it down to 5 psi and it stopped . The good thing is..... once she has no choice but to get a new one we'll install the right size !

You mean like this?

You mean like this?
I found this the other day. The first boiler went in in 1992 or 1993. It was replaced around 2000 because of the crack. I found this last week. The house water is drained but the heat is still on with no antifreeze in the system. The caretaker is in Florida and the house ran out of oil and sooted up around the end of December. Someone came to stay in the house and found it cold. The installer has a funny way of wiring boilers. The circulator and zone valves all stay open even when the burner is locked out. The circulator running picked up heat from other areas of the house and it didn't freeze or break during the cold down in the teens. The oil deliveries told the tale.
When I cleaned the soot plugged boiler, I found the new crack.

Time

for a 3-pass if you're staying with oil.

too square

Ron, I'm thinking that the rep that told you that was also square. Even had V-8 leakers. Just poor and too thin of a casting. Like I said before, that was originally an American Standard boiler when Burnham bought them out and became Burnham-America. Never had a problem with the early "V" series boilers, and the design has remained the same right thu to top the 8, besides swing out burners, and improved clean-out access. Too bad a lot of them didn't show up until the blocks were into the 10th thru _ part of the warranty period. Sorry, can't help you. 

Yep , I agree

the casting near the cleanouts is too thin and probably the cause of all the V7 leakers . But we've installed probably a few thousand V8s in about a decade and maybe replaced a handful of leakers . I changed one out that was leaking at the push nipples . Only time will tell for the V8 line ......